Thursday, March 31, 2011

Good ol’ AT&T has got their PR machine in high gear today. CEO Randall Stephenson told Businessweek that the T-Mobile deal would instantly bring more bandwidth to users in constrained cities:

“This transaction is very instrumental” in improving network service, said Stephenson at the event. “Virtually on the day you close the deal, getting a 30 percent lift in capacity in New York City: that’s a significant improvement in call quality and data throughput.”Other things that would have helped: Adding capacity at the same rate you were adding customers.

It isn’t like iPhones will suddenly be able to use T-Mobile’s 3G network radios.

JBL, an American audio electronics company, is drumming up the OnBeat, an awesome-looking $150 iPad speaker dock that also works with the iPhone, iPod touch or other audio sources hooked up via a 3.5 millimeter auxiliary hack. It comes with a standard 30-pin dock connector allowing you to charge and sync your iOS device, even when the system itself is off.

There’s also a USB connection for desktop iTunes, an IR remote and an AC power supply. Another nice-to-have: A built-in composite video output that sends video from your iOS gadget to an a TV set or a compatible external display. The perks don’t stop here, quite the contrary. Read on for more juicy details and beautiful shots right after the break.

It’s got dual Phoenix full-range transducers with computer-optimized DSP equalization for a “richly detailed 360-degree soundstage”. The speakers are integrated into an awesome-looking flower iMac-like base. “It’s as sculptural as it is conversation-starting,” a blurb says. A clever dock connector design lets you rotate your docked device in full 360-degree freedom, for portrait or landscape viewing and everything in between. The OnBeat system can be yours in exchange for a cool $150 beginning next month.

The New York Times has raised a pay wall yesterday. From now on, you must choose between three subscription models ($15/$25/$35 every four weeks) to access online articles at NYTimes.com. As you know, everyone can read up to twenty articles each month for free and home delivery subscribers get to enjoy unlimited access to online articles on NYTimes.com and via smartphone and tablet apps.

In addition to those deals, Amazon partnered with the paper and announced yesterday that subscribers to the Kindle version of The New York Times will get free and unrestricted access to all online articles at the NYTimes.com site. Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s VP of Kindle content:

Given The Times’ transition to a digital subscription model, we’re excited to be able to offer Kindle subscribers online access to all the digital content available at NYTimes.com at no additional cost.You’ll receive an email notice when the offer goes live. The New York Times is the bestselling newspaper in the Kindle Store, Amazon tells us. This interesting proposition was obviously conceived as another reason to buy the Kindle hardware. If last couple of week are an indication, Amazon sure knows how to keep themselves in the news.

First they made a splash by launching the Android Appstore for Android despite lawsuit from Apple over the use of App Store trademark, then turned heads with the new Test Drive feature that lets you sample Android apps in a browser and yesterday they beat Apple and Google with a cloud locker for music, movies and other document types.